A New Study Linking Profanity to Honesty Shows People Who Curse are More Authentic

August 11, 2017

Sure, most people will shame you for being a potty mouth, but there could actually be some good behind it. Swearing reduces stress and according to this three part study, being a potty mouth may indicate a person is more trustworthy.

This study I am referring to was accepted for publication in the journal of Psychological and Personality Science this year and can currently be found if you click here. In this study, Gilad Feldman of the Department of Work and Psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands led his research on an international scale. Their goal was to find out if there was a link between swearing and straightforwardness and it seems they got the results they were looking for.

According to their research, those who cussed may be more likely to participate in less than normal activities. Furthermore, they found that people who cussed were also more authentic. For this, researchers asked almost 300 individuals to report on how frequently they cursed, list their favorite swear words, and so forth. These people were then questioned on their honesty.

They then analyzed the social media interactions of around 70,000 people and looked for the presence of profanity. They found that the people who used more profanity were also more honest with what they were posting. For the last part of this study, the researchers went over the 2012 Integrity Analyses of almost all of the US states. This showed a link between profanity and the state’s integrity score. Crazy, isn’t it? Would you expect someone who curses a lot to be trustworthy?

While saying that, it is also important to note that not all potty mouths are good people who will be honest with you and not everyone who refuses to swear will air your dirty laundry to the world. People who curse constantly may even commit serious crimes in their lives (just as people who do not swear may) but they will not pretend everything is fine and dandy when it isn’t. On all three parts of this study, researchers were able to find that profanity was associated with more honesty, that has got to mean something.

I for one am a very big potty mouth and believe their findings are quite accurate. How often do you curse and are you an honest person? Let us know what you think about all of this. For more information on the link between profanity and trustworthiness check out the video below.